


Ghosting

by Violetrose93



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Agnes/Gerry background rarepair, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Because I can, Because I say so that's why, Canon What Canon, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Halloween, Martin Blackwood throws a Halloween party, Sasha James Lives, Tim Stoker Lives (The Magnus Archives), angst is the spice of life, ghosting, ill-advised hookup, some stuff is different, some stuff is the same, the canon is what I make it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:55:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27470824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Violetrose93/pseuds/Violetrose93
Summary: It wasn’t as though she could tell Martin the truth. How do you tell one coworker you fucked your best friend (who also happens to be your coworker)? That after years of friendship, he’d completely ghosted you, most likely out of intense regret, leaving nothing behind but a jagged, gaping chasm where there’d once been a living, breathing person?There just wasn’t a polite way to work that into the conversation.
Relationships: Georgie Barker/Melanie King, Gerard Keay/Agnes Montague, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Sasha James/Tim Stoker
Comments: 3
Kudos: 27





	Ghosting

**Author's Note:**

> So I was getting frustrated with the lack of happy Timsasha content, which inevitably led to me creating my own. If I had a dollar for every fic I saw with the "unhappy ending tag" . . . Well, I'd be sad AND rich, instead of just sad. I prefer my angst with a happy ending, thank you very much. So here's a Timsasha fic that lights the canon on fire, runs it over with a car, then chucks it into Lost Johns' Cave for good measure.

There was something about Tim Stoker that always seemed to draw Sasha back to him. Most days, she couldn’t put a finger on what it was. Certainly not the way the sunlight fell on his sandy-brown hair, bringing out hints of gold and strawberry that seemed nearly impossible in their intensity. Or the way his shoulders always seemed to be barely straining against the seams of his oxford shirts, however untucked and loosely buttoned they might be.

She didn’t think she was shallow. She wouldn’t say that a fit figure or a handsome face didn’t turn her eye, but there was something about the way her gaze always seemed to return to Tim that went beyond sheer looks. She’d think about it for days, mind churning as she stole glances at him across the staffroom. Most nights, she went home frustrated, with a gnawing in the pit of her stomach that would stay long after she fell asleep alone.

Then, somedays, it would hit her like a sudden burst of rain. The way his eyes crinkled when he laughed, head thrown back. His mouth when he quirked a smile at her that Jon couldn’t see. Or maybe it was the way that he was always genuinely and unfailing happy to see her. No matter how early their workday started or how late it ended. No one else had ever looked at her with that kind of constant, unfaltering warmness. Not her mother or her father, not any of the revolving door of foster parents and social workers. Certainly not Jon, whose base state seemed to hover somewhere between a porcupine and a grizzly bear woken up early from hibernation. Not even Martin could be counted on for that consistent affection; even he had bad days that destroyed his usual chipper facade (and the longer Sasha knew him, the more certain she was that it was a façade.) 

No, there was only Tim, with his bright, cheery smiles and hideously colored ties that he always managed to ditch as soon as possible. Tim, with the storms brewing somewhere deep behind his lively blue eyes, storms he tried to so desperately to keep hidden.

Tim, who had dated four librarian assistants, two researchers, and a secretary from legal in the three years since they’d started working together. Tim, who hadn’t been to Saturday night drinks in three months. Tim, who was increasingly absent in her life as the autumn dragged on, an empty vacuum of space her eyes slid to now.

Martin had brought it up once, tentatively, at the pub the three of them had taken to frequenting after transferring to the Archives. Sasha had shrugged and idly spun the straw around the thick glass rim of her drink, struggling to project a veneer of nonchalance even with tears threatening at the corners of her vision.

She’d lied, through her teeth and through the sharp bite of vodka as she downed the rest of her drink. It wasn’t as though she could tell Martin the truth. How do you tell one coworker you fucked your best friend, who also happens to be your coworker? That after years of friendship, he’d completely ghosted you, most likely out of intense regret, and left nothing behind but a jagged, gaping chasm where there’d once been a living, breathing person.

There just wasn’t a polite way to work that into the conversation.

And besides, Martin was close with Jon now, much closer than they had been at the beginning. She didn’t know if she could trust him to keep that secret, and the last thing she needed on top of everything else was the Institute rumor mill to start churning. So, she lied. She shrugged and lied and drank and pretended as if she wasn’t half a shot away from breaking down completely. Martin didn’t ask about Tim again, and Sasha was just fine that.

* * *

“Sasha?”

“Hmm?” She looked up from the statement printout on her desk. She’d been trying to get through it for close to an hour, but every time she made another attempt, the words started to swim off the page after the first two or three sentences.

“I asked if you’re doing anything for Halloween tomorrow.” Martin was staring at her, brow ridged in concern.

“Oh. I don’t know. Suppose I’ll just have a quiet night in. Maybe watch a horror movie or something.”

Across the aisle, Tim was building a tower out of pencils and rubber bands. If he was listening to their conversation, he gave no indication. Before, he’d have leaned over the divide and shaken his head in mock dismay. Ribbed her a little about giving all librarians a bad name, of living up to their fuddy-duddy reputation. She would have smirked and tossed her head before informing him that she was an _archivist_ , not a librarian, and her plans were no one’s business but her own. Except, inevitably, they would have become his plans, too.

Now, his eyes remained glued on his tower, fingers deftly stretching rubber bands and placing pencils as if that were his job, instead of filing statements and organizing shelves.

“Oh. Well that sounds fun,” Martin said rather lamely, and with a pang, Sasha realized just how sad her personal life had become. If _Martin_ thought her plans were depressing . . .

“Why? What are you doing?”

“Oh. Um . . .” He fiddled with the coffee mug full of pens on his desk, then looked up to meet her eye. “I’m having a party, actually.”

Sasha couldn’t help it. Her eyebrows shot up at the thought of Martin, quiet, nervous, bumbling Martin, throwing a Halloween party. He flushed.

“That’s . . . that sounds fun,” she said quickly. “Really, it does.”

Across the aisle, Tim’s hands stilled over the haphazard structure on his desk.

“Yeah, I mean, I think it’ll be good. Fun, I mean. Most of my old friends from the library are coming, and some of the research staff as well. A couple of the secretaries. Rosie said she’d bring homemade fudge.”

“Just make sure she’s labeled the pans properly,” she advised. “There was an incident a few years ago with some walnuts and well . . . it doesn’t matter, Diane was fine in the end, but it did put a little bit of a damper on the Christmas party.”

Martin laughed and looked only slightly concerned. “Yeah. Well.”

“Yeah.”

“Iwaswonderingdoyouwantocome?”

The last sentence was spoken so quickly Sasha almost didn’t catch its meaning. She blinked, watching the color rise in Martin’s face until his skin was almost as red as his hair. Was he . . . asking her out?

No. Absolutely not. He had a crush on Jon. He’d been pining for months, hovering by his office door with cups of tea and that hopeful puppy look in his eyes. So, no.

Except maybe she’d misread him. She’d been wrong about so many things lately. Maybe it was just the look of an abused assistant trying desperately to win the approval of their grouchy boss.

Maybe.

She opened her mouth, was already starting to politely decline the offer when Tim spoke.

“What’s the deal, Martin? Inviting everyone in the Institute but me?”

Martin flinched, then looked at Tim in surprise. “What? No, that’s not—I mean, I did invite you.”

“When?” he asked incredulously. 

“I sent you your invitation last week. I just—” He looked back at Sasha “—I don’t have your address, and I was out sick with that stomach bug until yesterday.”

Sasha forced herself to laugh. “Tim doesn’t check his mail for weeks. Drives his landlady insane.”

Tim didn’t respond. Didn’t even look at her in fact. Just kept grinning at Martin. He shrugged playfully, like this was all one big joke to him.

That did it. The little tilt to his shoulder, the half-insolent, half-kidding shrug that made up the base of so many of his reactions. Something like ice solidified in the base of her heart, freezing the cracks and fissures that had been forming ever since he’d pulled away. The smile that followed, that twisted her lips painfully and pulled them away from her teeth, was the closest she’d ever come to sneering.

“Don’t worry about the invite, Martin. Of course I’ll come. And remind me to give you my address, too. We work enough late shifts together, you should have it anyway.”

Martin was still smiling and nodding and stammering as she stood, swept the statements into her desk drawer, and snatched her purse up off the back of her chair. All without so much as tilting her head in the direction of Tim Stoker. “We can talk more after lunch, yeah?”

And without waiting for a response, she strode through the door, willing her composure to hold until she was at least outside the building.

* * *

“It’s a cute dress,” Agnes pronounced, expression mild as she considered the article in question from her perch on Sasha’s bed.

“I’m not looking for cute,” Sasha grumbled, smoothing her palms across the skirt. She’d thought a double layer of black lace on black silk would be sexy, but she still looked like she was dressed for a violin recital.

“Hmm.” Agnes tilted her head. “It’s not cut low enough, then. And it’s too long, too. You can barely see your knees.”

“Why is that a bad thing, again?”

She shrugged. “Not bad. But not really sexy either. Unless you went with something tighter. That loose and that long . . . it looks like something a little girl would wear to a funeral.”

Sighing, Sasha unzipped the dress and kicked it off. Grabbing her robe, she collapsed onto the bed. “Everything I own looks like I stole it from Gertrude’s wardrobe,” she moaned.

Agnes smirked. “Trust me, not even Gertrude would have been caught dead in some of those dresses.”

“Wow. Too soon, don’t you think?”

“It’s not like she is dead, Sasha.”

“Eh, might as well be. I heard Elias had to practically force her into retirement.”

“Regardless, have you considered not shopping for clothes at estate sales?”

Sasha whacked her with a pillow. “Shut up.”

Ever cool and collected, Agnes just chuckled and tossed the pillow onto the floor. “Why the sudden desire for corsets and miniskirts? Didn’t think they were really your style.”

Sasha rolled her eyes. The fact that Agnes could stop you in your tracks wearing a garbage sack wasn’t currently helping to improve her mood. Even less so considering the shimmering jumpsuit she had on. It fit her like a second skin while still skirting the line between scandalous and skanky. The fabric seemed to move with the light, colors appearing and disappearing in rapid succession, and it hadn’t taken Sasha more than three seconds to guess what she was.

“Not all of us can pull off a literal flame as a costume,” she muttered, picked at the edge of her quilt.

“I acknowledge that I am, quote unquote, ‘on fire’ tonight, but you’re still not answering my question.”

Sasha wrinkled her nose. “Did you really just say, ‘quote unquote’?”

“ _Sasha_.”

“Okay, fine. Tim’s been ghosting me for months, he pissed me off yesterday, and now I want to get back at him.”

Whatever Agnes had been expecting, this clearly wasn’t it. “Tim as in . . . Hot Tim?”

“Yes, Hot Tim,” she replied exasperatedly. “Call him that around Gerry, do you?”

“Gerry’s actually the one who started it,” Agnes said absentmindedly. “But again, back to you . . . why is Tim ghosting you?”

Her face burned as it always did whenever she remembered that night. That stupid, stupid night. It had been a risk—even through the haze of tequila and vodka she’d known that—but if she’d known it could possibly go this badly . . . if the worst that could happen wasn’t a few weeks of awkwardness before snapping back to their old routines . . .

The story spilled out then, and the longer she spoke, the higher Agnes’s eyebrows traveled up her forehead. When she finally finished, the eyebrows in question were lost behind the sharp, coppery red bangs that defined so much of her face.

“Wow. Okay.”

“I know.”

“So, this was after the . . .”

“Yes, after the engagement party. Honestly, now that I think about it, this is all your fault.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes, really. You’re the one who insisted on having all that liquor. Tequila, and whiskey, and vodka, and, I don’t know, schnapps.”

Agnes howled with laughter. “Okay, now you’ve gone too far. As if either of us would serve schnapps to our guests. Gerry would pour it over his head and light the match himself before he’d do that.”

She giggled, imagining the look on Gerry’s face—Gerry the wine connoisseur, Gerry the whiskey aficionado—as a bottle of peppermint schnapps was passed around at his engagement party.

When their laughter died down, Agnes asked, “Did you two ever talk about it?”

Sasha shook her head. “I mean, we talked a little the morning of. It’s a little fuzzy, honestly, and I left so quickly. I always thought we’d get around to discussion it, though. But ever since, he’s barely looked at me.” Her voice cracked at the end, and for once, she didn’t try to hide it.

“Did you . . . I mean, do you regret it?”

“I don’t know. I mean, I freaked out at first. He was my best friend, I didn’t want to risk losing that. But I thought about it over the weekend and I realized that I . . . did want to be with him. But then I came into work that Monday and he could barely look at me.

“So . . . yes. I do regret it,” she whispered. “I wish it’d never happened. He was my best friend, Agnes, and now it’s like I don’t even exist. Like he’s just forgotten I’m there. Or doesn’t care,” she added. “And obviously, he regrets it, so what can I say anyway? I’m not going to beg someone to be with me.”

Agnes frowned, considering. “I suppose. I just can’t see Tim Stoker regretting anything like that. At least, not to the point of complete and total ghosting. You said he’s been with people at the Institute before?”

“Yeah. Just last week, actually. Jon walked in on him with one of the library assistants in the cleaning cupboard last week. Mark or Matt or something.”

Agnes frowned. “Blonde, super fit? Wears too much cologne?”

“Yep, that’s the one. Jon had quite a bit to say about the cologne in particular. Something about it being a health hazard to anyone with a delicate respiratory system. Why, do you know him?”

Agnes nodded, pursing her lips. “In passing. Gerry used to . . . work with him.”

“And . . ?”

“Apparently the last librarian had a penchant for hiring eye candy, so he’s not too quick on the uptake. But,” she said, shrugging apologetically, “he’s quite attractive. Nice, too, in a bland way,” she added, looking sour.

“Fantastic,” Sasha muttered, going back to pulling at threads in the quilt.

“Interesting.”

“What?”

“I never thought I’d see Sasha James jealous.”

“I’m not.”

“Hmm. Liar.”

“I can get on quite fine without Tim Stoker in my life. I did it before, I can do it again.”

“The question is,” said Agnes quietly, “do you want to?”

And for once in her life, Sasha James didn’t have an answer. 

* * *

Agnes ended up lending her a dress in the end. She’d brought a couple with her just in case. Sasha hadn’t been planning on anything elaborate. Her evil plan hadn’t gotten much beyond _sexy dress_ , _devil horns_ before she’d gone to Agnes for help with the former. And with the tight, white dress they picked, the latter ended up being moot. Instead, she bought a cheap halo from the corner store, and Agnes helped weave leftover Christmas tinsel into her thick curls.

The effect, when finished, was quite good. Of course, sexy angel wasn’t any less cliché than sexy devil, but at least she felt like more herself. The skirt was short, sure, and the bodice a deep plunge, but she still felt like herself. A sexy, borderline slutty version, but a version of herself all the same.

“I wear black too much normally, I think,” she reflected as they walked up the front walk to Martin’s. His whole house seemed to be bursting with light and sound, the front windows wide open despite the autumn chill in the air. “It’s not different enough for a costume.”

They stopped at the front door. Agnes cocked her head and arched an eyebrow. “After you, James. This is your moment.”

Sasha rolled her eyes. “Please.”

The room didn’t stop to stare when she walked in. The music didn’t cut with a screech, leaving only the sound of her hammering heart. In fact, the only people who noticed she’d arrived at all were Jon and a tall woman with deep brown skin and eyes, standing near the threshold. She blinked, tried to reconcile the image of Jon at a party, and then Agnes was behind her, urging her forward so she could shut the door.

“Sasha! Aren’t you looking . . . angelic tonight,” he drawled, a deadpan look on his face.

“Dear lord,” muttered the woman beside him, eyelids snapping shut momentarily.

Half-shouting to be heard over the roar of the music, Sasha said, “That’s kind of the point!”

“Point made, then.” Even when he was doling out compliments, Jon sounded as though he was a fifty-year-old barrister instead of a thirty-something archivist. Although, Sasha wondered, was there really that much difference?

“I’m Basira,” the woman said, leaning forward the shake her hand. Her grip was cool and firm, and somehow her anxiety seemed to ease just from that small contact alone. There was an analytical light in her eyes as she regarded Sasha, almost as though she were an interesting puzzle she was intent on figuring out.

“Sasha. I work with Jon.”

“So I’ve heard.”

She glanced sidelong at Jon, but what the look meant, Sasha couldn’t guess. She knew he had mentioned a girlfriend from when his college days, so was this her?

“Did you go to Oxford with Jon?”

Basira snorted while Jon reddened. Ever astute, he seemed to know what Sasha was getting at. “God, no. I met him at the Institute. I was giving a statement about my job.”

“Really? What do you do?”

“I’m a cop.”

Sasha spent a good ten seconds processing this. In the end, the best response she could manage was, “Was your precinct haunted, then?”

Basira roared with laughter, while Jon shook his head in disgust. “Really, Sasha? I expected more from you.” 

“First mistake,” Agnes chimed him, hand gripping Sasha’s elbow. “Nice to meet you,” she said, nodding at Basira, “but I’m afraid the drinks table is calling our name.” And with that, she tugged Sasha back into the crowd.

“Are they . . . dating?” Agnes asked lowly as they duck and wove through the mass of people crammed into Martin’s house.

“I honestly have no idea. I don’t think so? But also maybe? I know Jon’s mentioned having girlfriends before.”

“Really?”

“Well. A girlfriend. But still.”

“Is it bad that I kind of hope that they’re not? For poor Martin’s sake?” 

Sasha hummed noncommittally, not forgetting how odd Martin had been acting when he’d invited her.

There wasn’t so much a table dedicated to drinks as there was an entire kitchen. Every available surface was covered in an impressive array of liquor bottles, beer cans, and plastic party cups in a rainbow of colors. Martin was perched on a counter beside the fridge, playing bartender for a long line of happy customers.

“Sasha! You came!” he shouted when he spotted her over the crowd. Thrusting the bottles he’d been holding at the girl next to him, he hopped down and waded through the sea of people so he could enfold her in a tight hug.

She knew he was drunk even before she smelled the whiskey on his breath. Sober Martin, reserved, bashful sober Martin, would not be trying to squeeze the life out of her in the middle of crowded kitchen. Neither would he rest his chin on his shoulder and whisper in her ear, words slurring slightly, “I’m so glad you’re _here_.”

Sasha giggled nervously, they extricated herself from his grasp. “Me, too, Martin. How’s it been?”

He slung an arm over her shoulder and steered her back into the living room. She looked frantically at Agnes, but she only laughed and turned back toward the girl who’d assumed Martin’s post as bartender.

“Here, let’s do shots,” he said, jerking her toward a smaller table in the corner, piled high with shot glasses and . . . was that white rum?

“Is it safe for you to have another drink, Martin?” she asked, only half-joking as she eyed his hazy gaze with alarm.

“It’s fine,” he said, then grabbed the bottle and started pouring. She was bolstered by the fact that only a little of the liquor splashed onto the table. When Martin handed her hers, lifted his and said, “Cheers,” she didn’t hesitate before knocking it back. The liquor surged through her immediately, hot and electric. For the first time since Tim had started ghosting her, she felt something else besides hollow.

She locked eyes with Martin. “Let’s go again.”

* * *

Four shots later (or was it five?), she didn’t think she’d be able to pick Tim out of a lineup, much less the crowd at Martin’s house. He hadn’t been lying about the library and research staffs, but at one point, she was sure the entire Institute must be crammed into this tiny house. For a guy who seemed afraid of his own shadow most of the time, he sure knew how to throw a rager.

He knew how to enjoy one, too. Sasha had screamed in surprise when he first whirled her into the middle of the dance floor, but five shots later (or was it four?), she was beyond caring. She danced, she screamed, she shrieked in joy as Martin spun her around like a top at the end of a Queen song she forgot the moment it finished playing. Finally, half-laughing, half-choking, she stumbled out into the hallway, dragging Martin behind her.

Wheezing, they somehow managed the stairs, bouncing off hallway walls before staggering into Martin’s bedroom.

“Now that . . . that was fun,” she said, giggling as she collapsed onto the floor. The ceiling spun in lazy circles, and the rug beneath her head was rolling like the sea before a storm. She’d never felt better.

“Better than movies by yourself?”

“Definitely.”

With great effort, she hauled herself into a sitting position and took a look around. Martin’s bedroom was somehow both expected and unexpected. For example, if she’d had to have put money on three thing she’d had thought to find here, she definitely would have guessed the jigsaw puzzle spread out across his desk, the retro HAM radio on a table under the window, and the pair of fuzzy slippers poking out from beneath his bed. What she wouldn’t have counted on, however, were the shelves of trophies and ribbons lining the walls. Standing on wobbly legs, she stumbled over for a closer look.

“Wow, Martin. I didn’t know you were a science nerd.” Science fairs, symposiums, even a few pseudo-professional competitive leagues—they were all represented here, with the years ranging from the present to what must have been his high school era. Something pricked uncomfortably in her chest, and Sasha realized that, despite her best intentions, she’d underestimated Martin as much as the others had. When she’d first learned the truth about his background, she’d promised to keep it a secret out of what she’d thought was compassion. Now, she realized, it had been closer to pity. Pity for poor Martin, who was so far out of his depth among all of his educated colleagues, who hadn’t even finished high school, let alone uni.

Now, she wondered, if he hadn’t had to take care of his mother, what might Martin have been? Based on what she was looking at, certainly not an archival assistant in a joke of a scientific institute dedicated to studying things most of academia didn’t even believe existed.

“Figured I should probably have something outside of work to keep me busy, you know? Keep me grounded amongst all the spooky stuff.”

He’d come to stand beside her, and Sasha leaned against him as she giggled. “Don’t let Jon hear you call it spooky. He’d never forgive you.”

Martin sighed. “I’ve just gotten Jon to stop looking at me with disdain every time I bring him a statement. I have no interested in reigniting his contempt.”

“Jon didn’t—Jon doesn’t feel that way about you at all,” she replied, turning to face him. “He’s just prickly. He likes things just so, and he had so much time to get used to me and—Tim in research. It just took him a while to warm up to you, that’s all.”

“Think so?”

“Sure.” No, not really, but she wasn’t about to quash the growing hope in his eyes. “Martin, do you like Jon?” 

“What?” he yelped. “No. Why?”

She raised an eyebrow, and he blushed deeply.

“I mean . . . maybe? A little.” She gave him a knowing look, and he crumbled. “Fine, yes. I do. Quite a bit. But I’m only telling you this because I trust you.”

“And because you’re absolutely plastered.”

“Ye-es. And that.”

Sasha laughed. “Can I ask you something, then? Why were you so weird when you invited me yesterday? You kept blushing, and I thought—well, I mean, it seemed like for a second . . .”

“That I had a crush on you?” Martin snickered. “God, no. Not that you’re not—I mean if I was into women, I’m sure I’d—”

“Relax, I’m not offended. I was just curious.”

“Oh, yeah, no, that was just because I knew Jon was watching from his office, and I was trying to—” He stopped, but it was too late.

“Martin Blackwood, are you using me to make Jon jealous?”

His face surpassed the red of his hair and went straight to maroon. “I don’t—I wouldn’t—that would be a terrible thing to—I’m so sorry.”

Sasha rolled her eyes and flopped down in his desk chair. Shaking her head and clicking her tongue, she said, “I’m so disappointed in you.”

“I’m sorry, I know it’s a horrible thing to do, and not fair to you at all. I didn’t think it through—”

“No, you didn’t think it through.” Sasha crossed her arms. “Everyone knows if you’re going to use a friend to make someone jealous, you have to let them know. So they can help? God, Martin, it’s like we’ve taught you nothing.” She ignored the fact that she’d slipped up, that the we she was referring to didn’t exist anymore.

Martin froze, then smiled. “Really?”

“Really,” she said, and he enveloped her in another crushing hug.

“Martin, what are you doing? I’ve been looking everywhere for—” Jon stood with one foot over the threshold, mouth agape as he took in the sight in front of him. Belatedly, Sasha realized what this must look like. Both of them, drunk in Martin’s bedroom, her in his arms (literally), his face buried in her shoulder.

Then, all at once, Jon’s face snapped back into its crisp, painfully correct mask. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I was . . . interrupting.” And with that, he turned on his heel and disappeared down the hallway.

“Shit,” they said in unison, then stared at each other.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” she asked after a few seconds, shoving him toward the door. “Go chase him down!”

“But—I don’t know what to say! Where do I even start?”

“It’s not going to matter if he leaves. Just . . . tell him the truth. That’s all you can do, I think. And the rest if up to him.”

Martin looked at her solemnly. “That’s utterly terrifying.”

“Or you can spend the rest of your life wondering and wishing you made a different choice.”

A few more seconds passed, then he nodded. “Thanks, Sasha,” he said. Then he was gone, barreling down the hallway. She listened as his thudding footsteps receded, then faded entirely. Suddenly, she was exhausted and way too sober. The desire for a moment to herself, with a locked door between her and the rest of the world, was overpowering.

She hadn’t seen Tim all night, she reflected as she searched for a bathroom. With a sickening jolt to her stomach, she realized that he’d never actually said he was coming. He’d teased Martin about the invite, sure, but he hadn’t said he was planning on going.

Finding an unoccupied bathroom, she locked the door and turned to stare gloomily into the mirror. She looked . . . good, surprisingly. Her makeup was smeared a bit, and her hair was tousled after so much dancing, but still. She looked like a real person. Like someone who went out and had fun instead of locking themselves in a dusty archive all the time. God, she hadn’t looked like this since…

Wincing, she pushed the thought away. Messy hair, smeared makeup . . . only then it had been from Tim’s hands, Tim’s lips.

She shook her head. She needed to go find Agnes. Or maybe Melanie. She’d spotted her somewhere on the dance floor with a short, dark woman in a _What the Ghost?_ shirt and fishnets. It was a surprisingly sexy look. Come to think of it, Melanie had seemed to think so too. Maybe she wouldn’t go find Melanie after all. Who knew what _she_ might be interrupting?

* * *

If anything, there seemed to be even more people packed into Martin’s parlor than before she’d gone upstairs. Only Agnes, holding court from the corner of one of his battered blue sofas, sat alone. Not that that was unusual. There was something in her eyes that kept most people at bay even on her good days. 

“Where’ve you been?” she asked as Sasha plopped down beside her. “Saw you go upstairs with Martin ages ago.”

She snorted. “Ah, yes. Martin and I drank together, we danced together, we went to his room together. He confessed he’s been using me to make Jon jealous the entire time together—that last one doesn’t quite go right, but you get the gist.”

Agnes blinked rapidly. “Wha-at?”

Sasha recounted her conversation with Martin, and by the time she was finished, the redhead looked mildly impressed. “Good for Martin. About time he took some initiative. If it was up to Jon, they’d die on opposites sides of the break room, pining over their tea.”

“Still don’t know what his deal is with Basira, but he didn’t seem too happy to see me with Martin,” replied Sasha, smirking at the memory of Jon’s face, jaw flapping in the wind.

“Oh, I know what’s going on,” said Agnes, sipping her drink. “A big fat nothing. Apparently, Basira calls him for advice on cases linked with the Institute from time to time. They were talking this morning and she mentioned she didn’t have plans for tonight, so he invited her.”

“Yeah, but was it like, a friend invite, or a not-so-friend invite?”

“According to Basira, it was a the-man-I’m-secretly-in-love-with-but-refuse-to-admit-it-even-to-myself-asked-someone-else-to-a-party-and-I-really-don’t-want-to-show-up-alone invite.”

“Oddly specific.”

Agnes shrugged. “She’s a cop. Probably hard to turn it off.” She waited until Sasha started to take a drink from her cup before adding slyly, “Tim’s here, by the way.”

She managed not to choke, but only just barely. “Really? Haven’t seen him.”

“He’s in the garden right now, if you wanted to go say hello.” Agnes eyes looked slightly greener than normal as she watched Sasha over the rim of her cup.

“I don’t.”

“Hmm.”

“Gerry here yet?” she asked, trying to change the subject.

“Almost. He texted, said he’ll be here by eleven. Bunch of Halloweeners smashed the shop window, so he had to clean up.”

“Bet they regretted that.”

“Most definitely.”

Sasha had known Gerry peripherally since she’d started working for the Institute. Like everyone else, she’d assumed he was just another emotionally distant, academic goth. (There were more of them then people would think.) After he and Agnes had started going out, though, she’d gotten to observe him a bit more closely. He was funnier than she’d expected, more easy going. And for the most part, quite cheery. At least until someone messed with his books.

Agnes drained her cup, then stood up. “Refill. You coming?”

“Sure.”

In contrast to the rest of the house, the crowd in the kitchen had dispersed some. Only a small gaggle of partiers remained clustered in the corner. Her stomach twisted painfully when she realized Tim was one of those partiers, standing beside a blonde man in a muscle shirt and laughing as he poured tequila directly into his mouth.

She glared accusingly at Agnes, who just shrugged and whispered, “Did I say garden? I meant kitchen,” before disappearing back down the hall.

Furious, Sasha turned to follow her.

“Tim, careful!”

Glass shattered. Sasha froze and, with the rest of the room, turned slowly to see what had broken. Amber liquid pooled at Tim’s feet, settling around shards of glass on the cheap linoleum. His white trainers were stained gold in the harsh fluorescent light. He was staring at her so singularly that for a moment, she was paralyzed in the gravity of his eyes. Blue, but not like the ocean or the clear bright sky. Dark blue, like the haze of storm clouds in the distance on a summer day. Like the depths of Arctic ice, sunk deep below the surface of the sea.

She fled.

Down the hall and up the stairs, hands trembling, the only thought to get as far away from Tim Stoker as she possibly could. God, this had backfired so badly. One look and she was completely undone. If she wasn’t reasonably sloshed, she might have tried to hotwire a car. She wasn’t sure. Everything was wrong and she just kept making bad decision after bad decision. What was a little motor vehicle theft after everything else?

The door to Martin’s bedroom was firmly closed, as was the door to the bathroom and his roommates’ rooms. But there was a guest room, she remembered, all the way at the end of the hall. She’d stayed there last winter after the heat went out in her flat.

It hadn’t changed much since then. A futon in a floral-print cover. Stacks of cardboard boxes piled high on a thin braided rug. It was quieter in here, with the door shut and the latch fastened. Away from the noise of the party. Not silent, of course. The bass still thumped through the floor, and on the other side of one wall, a man laughed. But it was better than downstairs, better than the kitchen. She collapsed onto the futon, ignoring the puff of stale air that rose from it in a cloud. She wondered idly if anyone had used it since she had.

Someone rapped hard on the door.

She ignored them.

They rapped again.

“Open the door.” It was Tim’s voice. Muffled and hoarse, but his voice all the same.

She hated the way she reacted. How her heart surged immediately, and her hand twitched toward the handle. After everything, she still wanted to open that door and fling herself into his arms. Pathetic.

He knocked one more time, quieter. “Sasha, please.”

It was the please that did it. That one stupid little word that dragged her off the bed and over to the door. She tried one last time to stop herself, to still her hand and wait until he gave up. But Agnes was right. They needed to talk. If nothing else, she could give him a piece of her mind for what he’d done. She took a steadying breath, undid the latch and went quickly to the window. She crossed her arms and watched, reflected in the glass, as the door swung forward and Tim stepped into the room. 

He hovered for a moment, uncertainty seeping from his posture. It wasn’t a look he wore often, and for an instant, she found a kind of perverse glee in seeing him off balance. Finally, he shut the door and refastened the lock.

“Unlocked, if you don’t mind.”

He flinched and Sasha reveled in another flash of momentary vindictiveness. She hadn’t said it for any other reason than she’d known it would hurt him. Hurt him to think she was afraid of him, no matter how minute that fear might be. She was ashamed to admit to herself how good it felt to hurt him, even if it was a lie. There were a thousand things she was feeling for Tim Stoker in that moment, but fear was not one of them. It never had been and never would be.

Still, he undid the latch.

The silence stretched between them, long and brittle. After everything else, she refused to be the one to break it. He was the one who’d iced her out, the one who’d disappeared without so much as a phone call. If he wanted to talk, it was on him. She had nothing to say.

She observed him in the dark glass, picking out the details of his hair, his clothes. She couldn’t for the life of her figure out what his costume was. If she hadn’t known him better, she would say he wasn’t wearing one at all.

Not that he didn’t still look good.

He looked at his feet and kicked at a dust ball. “How’ve you been?”

The shriek burst out of her with no semblance of control. Half rage, half disbelief, it hadn’t fully left her lips before she’d spun on her heel and lunged for the door. How’ve you been? How’ve you _been_? If there hadn’t been a cop downstairs, she might have seriously considered murder.

“Wait—stop—I’m sorry, that was stupid—” He dove in front of her, blocking the door. “Don’t go—just—five minutes. Please?”

“Get out of my way,” she half-snarled, trying to shove him aside. He winced but barely moved.

“Sash—

“No! You don’t get to call me that anymore!”

“Sash—Sasha—”

It was like a floodgate had been opened. Everything she’d been burying for months came pouring out in a single wave of rage that threatened to send her over the edge.

Gritting her teeth, she said, “I swear to god, Tim, if you don’t get out of my way—”

“Five minutes. That’s all I’m asking. Don’t you think we owe each other that?”

Ice washed over her face, crystallizing right below the surface of her skin. She channeled it as she spat, “I used to. But you certainly proved me wrong.”

Tim flushed. “That’s not fair.”

“Not fair? You know what’s not fair, Tim?” she asked, nostrils flaring. “What’s not fair is spending years, literally years, thinking someone’s your friend, trusting them, confiding in them, but then realizing it was all a lie. Just a trick so you’d fuck them and then they could pretend as though you don’t even exist. That’s what’s not fair.”

Now he blanched, the color in his face rapidly draining. “That’s what you think I did? The kind of person I am?”

“It’s not as though I have any evidence to the contrary,” she said coldly. “What did I say that isn’t true?”

“I was pretending at a lot of things, Sash—Sasha,” he said quietly, averting his gaze, “but being your friend was never one of them.”

She scoffed. “And the fact that you vanished after I finally had sex with you had nothing to do with anything? Right.”

The grief and sorrow and confusion she’d been feeling since Tim had cut her out was gone. The rage had grown into an inferno of white-hot fury that burned everything else away. She had laughed with him and cried with him and trusted him ~~and loved him~~ and he’d tossed it away like it was nothing. She didn’t want to talk to him; she wanted to strap a pack of C-4 to his chest and hit the detonator.

“What was I supposed to do, Sasha?” he asked, swallowing hard. “You said it was—that I was a mistake.”

“What are you talking about?”

“That morning. I heard you, in the bathroom. You were on the phone and you said, ‘God, I just made the biggest mistake of my life.’” His lips twisted with a bitterness she’d never seen before, and he still wouldn’t meet her eyes.

She started to open her mouth but snapped it shut. She knew what he was referring to, what he’d heard. The morning after, when she’d woken up naked in his bed, one of his arms slung around his waist, she’d panicked. She’d left him sleeping there (he was asleep, she was sure he’d been asleep) and gone into the bathroom to fall apart.

“That wasn’t—I was freaking out, I only called my sister to—”

“You said it was a mistake!”

“And wasn’t it?” she hissed. Gesturing to both of them, she said, “Look at us, Tim! It ruined everything! And for what? A single drunken hookup?”

“Right there,” he said, jabbing a finger at her. “There. That’s all it ever was to you? Just a ‘drunken hookup’? So, what do you care if I disappeared? After all, I couldn’t have meant that much to you,” he said, voice breaking.

“You’re going to ask me to believe it was something more to you?” she asked scathingly. “Please. Go sell that story to someone else, Tim. I’m not buying.”

“It did—”

“No. Do not. I’ve watched you for years. Years. You’ve never been in a relationship longer than month. I mean, seriously, how many people just at the Institute have you dated? And you expect me to believe that _our_ hookup was the one that actually meant something?”

“So, what? Because I like to go on dates, that means I’m incapable of wanting something more?”

“That’s not what I’m saying. But you lose interest in people like they’re mildly interesting clickbait articles. Click, skim, onto the next. Not once in all the years I’ve known you have I actually seen you commit to being with someone once the novelty’s worn off.”

“That’s not true.”

She rolled her eyes and sighed. “I don’t want to fight with you anymore, Tim. It’s pointless and exhausting and—”

“I wasn’t dating people because I was bored,” he said, staring through her. “I needed something to distract me. But you’re right. It never lasted, and I was always back to square one. Which was being your friend.”

“Then why not just leave well enough alone? Why kiss me, why start all of this? We were good, Tim,” she whispered. “We were good. At least, I thought we were—”

But he was shaking his head. “We weren’t. Or, I wasn’t. You were right when you said I was lying. I was. I was lying to you every single day, and I couldn’t stop myself, because I knew the alternative was exactly this. Not having you in my life at all. So, I just kept lying. Until I couldn’t.”

He inhaled shakily, locking eyes with her for the first time since he’d followed her into the room. There was nothing but blue for miles, endless and unfathomable.

“I’m sorry I kissed you. I didn’t want to hurt you. But I’ve been in love with you for so long, and I just . . . couldn’t keep lying anymore.”

“What?”

“And, look, if you still want to, we can try—I mean, I can try—to get back to how things used to be. Or at least, close. But I need time, Sasha, and I know I should’ve just said this in the beginning, but I didn’t think it would be this hard—”

“What did you say?” she whispered, fingernails biting into her palms. She stared at him, eyes wide, face expressionless. There was a distant ringing in her ears, and she thought she could feel a faint warmth deep in her chest.

“I said I’m sorry,” he said, face crumpling. “Sorry I kissed you, that I shut you out, that things ended up the way they did. If I could go back—”

“Not that. You said . . you said you loved me.”

“Oh. Yeah. I did. I mean, I do, but I know you—”

She silenced him with a kiss.

He froze under her touch, lips rigid, shoulders stiff, and her heart sank. She was just about to pull away when he surged forward, hands coming up to cup her face as he returned the kiss.

“God, Sasha,” he murmured, pulling away to rest his forehead against hers. “Don’t—if you don’t—I don’t need, I don’t know, pity, or—”

She kissed him again, winding her arms around his neck. When they broke apart, she whispered, “Every time you say something stupid, I’m going to kiss you so you’ll shut up.”

He tilted his head, considering. “The Earth is flat. Fossils are fake. Vaccines cause autism—”

No matter how many times she kissed Tim Stoker, there was nothing to prepare her for the weight of his arms around her, the press of his lips against hers. She mapped the edge of his jaw with her fingers, sighing as he buried a hand in her hair. He whimpered as she traced the shell of his ear, pulling back to press a searing kiss to the hollow of her throat.

“You weren’t a mistake,” she whispered, burying her face in the crook of his shoulder. “I was just afraid that I’d messed everything up. That I was going to lose you.”

“Never.”

They stumbled backwards, legs buckling at the edge of the futon. She sprawled on top of him, their limbs tangling as he stared up at her with those wide blue eyes, still deep, still expansive. And they were focused on her as though she were the only thing in the world.

“I missed you,” he murmured, fingers dancing over her lips, her nose, her cheeks. “So much. It was killing me to stay away, to not talk to you, to not _be_ with you . . .”

“I couldn’t tell,” she admitted, resting her head on his chest. He stiffened, then reached up to stroke her hair.

“I’m so—”

“Don’t. No more apologies or excuses. From either of us.”

“Okay.”

They stayed like that for a while, just holding each other and listening to the sounds of the party carrying on without them.

“What about Matt?” Sasha finally asked, not really wanting to know. But they needed to clear the air.

Tim looked at her blankly.

“Matt. Or . . . Mike? Mark?”

“Oh, Max. What about him?”

She fidgeted, playing with a button on his shirt. “Jon said he walked in on the two of you, and he was here with you tonight, so I thought . . .”

He snorted. “Jon’s an idiot.”

“So you weren’t in a cupboard with Max?”

“No, we were, but not like that,” he replied, laughing. “He saw one of his exes and was freaking out. Dragged me in there to hide.”

“Oh. Really?”

“Really.”

“Then why did Jon—”

“Jon’s under the impression that there’s only one reason to be locked in a cupboard with another person,” said Tim, snickering. “I tried to explain that it was all quite innocent, but he was already gone.”

Sasha laughed with him and let her fingers wander, traveling up to slide through his hair.

“Ask me who his ex is,” he said, pressing a kiss to her jaw.

“Who, Max?”

“Yeah.”

“Who’s his ex?”

Tim grinned. “Gerry.”

“No.”

“Yes. Apparently it ended quite poorly. He said something about accidentally burning a Leitner?”

“ _No_. Those are worth so much!”

“Yep. They hadn’t seen each other since it happened. I think he was afraid Gerry was actually going to murder him or something.”

“Honestly, can you blame him?”

“Nope.”

Sasha thought about this for a second, then started giggling. “That explains something else.”

“What?”

“I asked Agnes about him. She looked . . . displeased whenever she talked about him.”

Tim snickered again. “Hot librarian and scary arsonist fight over skinny goth: more at eleven.”

“Shut up,” she said, whacking him on the arm. “Agnes doesn’t do that anymore.”

“So she _says_ . . .”

She tilted her head up to glare at him, but he just took the opportunity to kiss her again. She hummed into his mouth, hands coming down to twist into the fabric of his shirt.

“Sasha,” he whispered, voice strained as she dragged her teeth along his jaw. “ _Sasha_. I want-I want you, but it it’s too fast—”

“Shut up and come home with me.”

He didn’t answer, just pressed his lips to hers with a greater ferocity. Without warning, he flipped them, pinning her to the futon and scattering kisses along her neck.

“Why wait?”

She moaned, hands scrabbling along his back as she searched for purchase. She found it in the soft hair at the base of his neck, tugging at it as his lips traveled up and down her throat in a searing wave. Rolling her hips, she savored the shudder that ran through him, and then hissed as he yanked one leg up to hook around his waist.

The door slammed open.

“It’s in one of these boxes, I think—” Martin was saying before he caught sight of them on the futon. “Oh. Oh, my.”

“Hello, Martin,” Tim called cheerfully as she buried her face in his shoulder, shaking with laughter. “Can we help you?”

“No—nope, just—looking for something, thought it might be in here—” he babbled, looking everywhere but at them. “But I can come back, it’s not that—”

“What’s wrong?” Jon said, appearing beside him. Before Martin could stop him, he pressed a lingering kiss into the crook of his shoulder. “Is it not here—oh.”

“Hi, Jon.” Sasha waggled a few fingers in his direction as she lowered her leg. “Looking for something?”

“. . . no.” It was hard to tell in the dark, but she thought he was blushing.

“Well, don’t let us stop you,” said Tim brightly, hopping up and pulling Sasha to her feet. “We were just on our way out.”

“Lovely party, Martin, thanks so much for inviting me.”

“Er, yes. Anytime.” Martin’s eyes were still wide as saucers, his face burning, but as they slid out the door and down the hall, she distinctly heard him say, “Pay up.”

* * *

“You’re not going to go freak out again in the bathroom, are you?”

They were in her bed this time, limbs entwined as cars trundled by on the street below. Morning sunlight filtered through her curtains. Her head nestled in the crook of his shoulder, and his pulse thrummed lazily under her lips. But despite the easygoing lilt to his voice, his heartbeat quickened with the question. 

“No. You’re not going to disappear on me again, are you?”

“No.”

“Good.” She shifted, propping herself up on an elbow to face him. “Pining doesn’t really suit either of us.”

Tim chuckled, his body mirroring hers as his eyes roved her face. “Speak for yourself.”

She reached out then to stroke the side of his face. Catching her hand, he held it there, eyes closed, for a long moment. Her heart stuttered as an expression of complete serenity spread across his face. She couldn’t stop herself from leaning forward and kissing him. When she pulled away, his eyes were open.

“I love you,” he whispered, pressing his lips to her knuckles. “And I’m not expecting you to say it back or anything, I just want you to know.”

She frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“I mean, I’ve had a lot of time to think about this, how I feel about you. But I know you haven’t, so if you need more time to—”

After all this time, she’d finally found a foolproof method for getting Tim Stoker to shut up. As she kissed him, she let herself smile against his lips.

“Of course I love you. Remember what I said happens when you say stupid stuff?”

“. . . you might have to remind me.”

And she did.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are always fun to receive, especially as this is the first thing I've written in quite a while. Thanks for reading!


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